My son, Joe, is an aircraft/diesel mechanic. I wouldn’t have thought my writing and his work would ever converge. Silly me. I learned the power of a viral video first hand after the shop he works for, White Knuckles Garage in Wanatah, Indiana, posted a snippet on Facebook that caught the attention of 678,000 diesel truck fans. On February 19, 2016, White Knuckles posted a video of a modification they had installed on one of the owner’s trucks. Over the next few evenings, Joe would come home from work and tell me how many more views had ticked on the counter each day. I listened in amazement.

The garage was experiencing a writer’s dream. Not only was the video getting tens of thousands of views each day, but the stats on the company Facebook page were climbing. They went from 2100 fans to 11,110 (as of the writing of this post). The video currently has 2500 likes, 1800 comments, and 8,362 shares. All this from a 51-second video of a diesel truck powering up with a supercharger—wow!

As a writer hoping to say something the world wants to hear, I had to take note and try to glean wisdom to help me and my writer friends along our way. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

• White Knuckles Garage knows their audience. Their posts are direct, concise, exciting, and unabashedly truck speak.

• White Knuckles Garage loves what they do and their customers. They post great pictures of local trucks with comments about owners and vehicle modifications. The owners have to be excited to see their truck publicized and glorified. As they do this, the garage regularly builds and participates in the community with whom they hope to do business.

• White Knuckles Garage uses video to get a little extra attention and spice things up. As I scrolled through their recent posts, I noticed that the videos got a lot more views and engagement than the pictures. Especially after the February post went viral.

• Finally, White Knuckles Garage is noted, by Facebook, as being very responsive to messages. In fact, it says they usually respond within minutes which earns them a green speed message icon on their Timeline. Again, evidence of engagement with their audience, consumers and lovers of diesel truck customization.

What do you think? At first glance, diesel trucks and inspirational writing may not seem to have much in common. However, this writer got some strong affirmation of what she’s heard at conferences when a big white diesel truck debuted its supercharger on Facebook.

~*~

Donna is represented by Sue Brower of the Natasha Kern Literary Agency. She’s a licensed minister, conference speaker, and estate planning attorney. She also works with GenderSave, a nonprofit seeking to empower women and girls at risk from gendercide practices in India. Contact Donna at donnakrice.com.